Yaun Becomes Reserve Currency

Oct, 04, 2015

In late 2014 I predicted the immanent approval of the Yuan (also known as the renminbi) as an IMF SDR Reserve Currency. For some strange reason, the vast majority of emerging market specialist did not see this inevitable move coming, which in my view merely reflects the fact ...Read full story

CFOs Foresee a Turbulant 2016

Oct, 06, 2015

Close to 86 per cent of finance professionals in the GCC rate the risk exposure of the current global economic and political outlook as either high or very high, the recently published CFO Strategies Index has revealed.
The index is the first of its kind to be dedicated entirely to the needs of ...Read full story

Sisi - Fuel for a Backlash?

Jul, 06, 2014

Egyptians now have to pay more for services after their government slashed fuel subsidies. Folly Bah Thibault speaks to Ashraf Abdel Ghaffar, Senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood; Mahmoud Hamad, associate professor of International Relations at Drake University; and Peter Middlebrook, managin ...Read full story

Somalia stands at a crossroads.
Down one road the current economic status quo will prevail, leading to anemic growth, high levels of informality (90%), unemployment (47 percent, 75 per cent for the youth) and lack of diversification and specialization. Down the other road, a new e ...Read full story

There are many causes of the Arab Spring, and lack of jobs and youth unemployment were certainly high among them. When oil prices are high, its great for the oil rich Gulf states, but as oil heads to less than US$30 a barrel, the macro-fiscal environment considerably worsens leading to lower public ...Read full story

The success of P5+1 discussion around Iran has had a ripple effect across the entire Middle East. Its not so easy to correlate the re-emergence of Iran with the collapse in oil prices - which has been largely driven by Saudi - but the emergence of Iran has changed the status quo and its full e ...Read full story

I have been working in Somalia since 1993, and happened to be in Mogadishu the day the Black Hawk came down. We (myself and Ian Charest) drove to the smoldering wreckage, knowing that this among other events was going to lead to a mass exodus on US and international staff; and it did. The ...Read full story

We have been commissioned by the Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (AKT) Consortium, financed by donors through UNDP, to conduct detailed value chain and trade flow studies of key products across the three AKT countries. Having lived and worked in the Middle East and Central Asia for ...Read full story

In December 2015 I was invited to a private dinner with HRH Prince William by my friend Stephen Stone. Steven is the kind of guy who behind the scenes puts a lot of things together without people knowing. The dinner was hosted by Dr. Thomas Kaplan, organized by Stop Ivory, and ...Read full story

In August and September 2015 my company was contacted by the UK Government and Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs to lead the technical work on the Regional Economic Cooperation Framework in Central and South Asia. The Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECC ...Read full story

I was delighted to be invited to be an expert on the Commission on Global Justice and Security being led by the Hague Institute and Stimpson Center, under the overall directorship of my long term friend Dr. Richard Ponzio. The Co-Chairs of the Commission on Global Security Justice & Governance ...Read full story

In March 2015 the United Nations in Myanmar invited me to present at the Myanmar Government Conference focused on adopting a new administrative reform framework. Administrative reforms had long been promised by President Thein Sein, and the Government was keen to identify priority reforms in core mi ...Read full story

Peter J Middlebrook Biography

Dr. Peter J. Middlebrook is a leading international geo-strategist and emerging market expert, specializing in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. He has travelled to more than 100 countries and worked in over 40, as a senior staff of ...Read full story

Publications

Generating Employment

Unemployment remains a congenital problem facing many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In the absence of viable economic alternatives, governments often turn to labour intensive public works programs as social safety nets to generate short term employment whilst producing growth enabling public...